777 Dinner in New Orleans

At S.Pellegrino’s 777 Dinner, New Orleans Stole the Show

8 Minute read

28 May 2026

Kiki Aranita

Writer

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Seven chefs from across the country gathered at Jack Rose for S.Pellegrino’s annual 777 dinner, transforming New Orleans traditions into a roaming feast of king cakes, kinilaw, gumbo, brass bands, and joyful chaos.

It was nearly impossible to sit still at the third S.Pellegrino 777 dinner in New Orleans. Guests were first ushered to Hot Tin, the Pontchartrain Hotel’s rooftop bar overlooking the city on a hot, humid night. Caribbean-inflected Sazeracs, served like poolside cocktails the size of small fishbowls, cooled everyone down as they mingled. Over the course of the evening, diners were whisked through the hotel to Jack Rose for dinner, where a brass band periodically swooped through the dining room, bringing guests to their feet as they waved napkins to the rhythm. With each ensuing course, diners transformed into dancers. The festivities culminated in the most foot-stomping of surprises, but we will get to that.

Everything feels and tastes a little bigger in New Orleans, a city redolent with the layered histories that each participating chef reckoned with on the plates they served.

S.Pellegrino’s 777 dinner series has evolved into a traveling showcase of chefs from across the country interpreting a host city through collaborative menus and contemporary fine dining. This year’s New Orleans edition, held ahead of North America’s 50 Best Restaurants awards, brought together chefs from Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, New York, Washington, D.C., and New Orleans itself to explore the city’s culinary traditions through distinctly personal perspectives.

Several participating chefs also serve on the 2026–2027 U.S. jury for the S.Pellegrino Young Chef Academy, giving the dinner an undercurrent of mentorship beneath the revelry. The evening was as much an exchange of ideas between chefs as it was a reinterpretation of New Orleans itself.

777 Chefs

Chef Ryan Ratino of Jônt in Washington, D.C., now a familiar fixture at 777 dinners, opened the night with individually sized cream pie orbs bedazzled with white chocolate and lacy purple-and-green frosting and stuffed with foie gras. It was an homage to New Orleans’ Mardi Gras king cakes.

Kato chefs Jon Yao and Alan Thao provided another ample appetizer: fried spot prawns perched on milk bread with salted egg yolk relish and Southern Chinese pickles, festooned with crunchy crowns, a dressed-up and deconstructed po’ boy.

Back at Jack Rose, chefs Aisha Ibrahim and Samantha Beaird told a story with Gulf shrimp kinilaw with cucumber, red onion, ginger, and clarified spiced coconut milk. These marinated shrimp were descendants of those fished by the Manilamen, the Filipino sailors who established the first Asian settlement in North America in 1763. Served in a dish wreathed in bougainvillea picked moments before dinner, Ibrahim married her modern Filipino cooking with a crucial but little-known Filipino story that predated her by centuries.

Chefs Fariyal Abdullahi and Lana Lagomarsini engaged with another essential New Orleans classic: gumbo. Their version centered around a lobster tail poached in Ethiopian kibbeh butter and accompanied by coconut rice arancini and slivers of fried okra.

As the band snaked its way around the tables, chef Brian Landry’s Lagniappe landed in front of diners, cheekily served in oyster shells. But these were not oysters from the sea. They were fried chicken oysters dressed in lemony Creole cream cheese and topped with Petrossian caviar.

The parade continued with chefs Gabriel Kreuther and Andrew Choi’s savory beignet, used to scoop up smoked eel rillettes covered in thin discs of foie gras and a citrusy nasturtium veil.

Chef Phila Lorn and his wife, Rachel, representing Philadelphia for the first time at a 777 dinner, brought a taste of their noodle- and seafood-focused restaurants, Mawn and Sao, by way of their “Cambolaya,” a portmanteau of Cambodian and jambalaya. They prepared creamy, light congee with a fermented mudfish and shellfish curry whose heat slowly snuck up on diners. It was a playful echo of their prahok, one of the dishes that put Mawn on the map.

Chefs Sujan Sarkar and Kunal Kathpalia’s dessert, “Bananas Imposter,” featured caramelized banana, banana ice cream, and date jaggery caramel, a riff on Bananas Foster, which was invented at Brennan’s in New Orleans. As the final plates landed, guests were gently pulled from their seats and ushered into yet another hall to confront a duo of surprises.

610 Stompers at 777 Dinner in New Orleans

The final bite of the night was chef Eka Soenarko’s choux au craquelin stuffed with pecan praline cremeux, followed by a veritable stampede of dancers dressed in tight baby hot pants, white terrycloth headbands, and red satin jackets. Anyone previously unfamiliar with the 610 Stompers, whose motto is “ordinary men, extraordinary moves,” quickly became acquainted as the troupe shimmied and wiggled along to songs like Sir Mix-A-Lot’s “Baby Got Back.”

Each participating chef filtered New Orleans, from its culinary traditions to its most iconic dishes, through their own cultural lenses. But in the end, the third S.Pellegrino 777 dinner belonged to wacky, wonderful New Orleans, which brought everyone to their feet.